Musician in USA relocating to Spain
So my family and I are relocating to Spain in the next two years and I have some time to prepare myself for the change, and I wanted to ask some guitarists living on that side of the world what I can expect.
I know I will be needing a step down transformer to be able to run my current gear. I would love your suggestions for a good one.
Currently my studio is very minimal after I sold a bunch of my gear, but there’s still some things that will need to be run by my power conditioners.
I have my Mac mini, Yamaha monitors, apollo interface for the desk side of things.
For the guitar side of things I have a mesa boogie dual rectifier multi watt head, a krab krevolution series 1 head, an orange or15 head, and a pedalboard running an average of 8 pedals depending on the set up. I use a voodoo labs pedal power plus 2 for the board.
I’m trying to be as detailed as I can to help answer any questions from the beginning regarding the power needs. Two of the heads are 100 watts and one is 15 watts.
I usually run my guitar rig on one power conditioner and my desk on another separate power conditioner.
Things I’m curious about:
- Can I run a power conditioner on one step down transformer and continue powering things as I do now with it?
- If I buy any new amps or power conditioners in Spain, I’m assuming they will be built to run to their electricity grid of 230 V 50hz type F sockets. Am I wrong?
- Can I avoid the VAT tax by buying mostly used gear locally since that’s what I do now on the states? No im not opposed to paying VAT there I just know electronics have a higher tax rate and I always buy used gear instead of new.
- As far as new gear goes, what kind of shops do you guys have in Spain for guitar and studio related equipment?
- Just how astronomical are your music gear related taxes for new purchases?
- Are there any tips or advice you’d like to share as a fellow musician? I remember I once had a customer at guitar center come in from overseas and he was so excited to see the most simple things like an SM57 microphone or a Boss DS1, which had me wondering just how rare good gear is overseas.
Please excuse my ignorance, I’m trying to learn as much as I can before the move to prepare myself and buy most of what I need in the states and have it shipped with the rest of our things.
I’d love to keep this mostly focused on the gear and electricity requirement discussion and not go into the whole “why are you moving to Spain bro??” If possible 🤣
Yes I am a native Spanish speaker and my heritage comes from Spain, so I am very much looking forward to becoming a part of the rural community near Asturias and hopefully bringing something of value to the people around me instead of being another American tourist taking affordable housing.
Any help you can share is immensely appreciated!
All the best and blessing to you all!